October 6, 2013: Arriving in Connecticut

We were still in northern Virginia, driving through the mountains, when we crossed the midnight mark making it Sunday morning.  I am so tired and there is still so much driving to be done.  West Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and New York are all still left before I can get to Connecticut.  So tired and so much left to do.

Made several stops in Virginia early this morning.  I was incredibly tired and having a hard time keeping awake so had to stop almost once an hour to get out and walk around.

Everyone fell asleep which meant that I could listen to Audible pretty easily.  I switched from the book that I had been reading and started reading a biography of James Monroe instead.  That was really good timing because I was driving right through the parts of Virginia that were being talked about in the biography.  It makes it so much cooler to read something like that while you are in the exact place where the story is unfolding.  The book was really interesting and made a huge difference in keeping me awake.  I was pretty good after that point and we made much better time.

No stops between an hour south of Winchester until stopped about fifteen miles into Pennsylvania to get a very early morning breakfast at a Sheetz.  I’ve missed Sheetz – they have the best breakfast sandwiches in Pennsylvania.  They do the same food as McDonald’s except that they do it so much better.  SO much better.

This was my passengers’ first time ever setting foot in the north.  They were pretty excited to be in Pennsylvania.  Very far from the world that they know.

Made good time through Pennsylvania and did not stop again until the sun was up and it was time for a quick bathroom break on I78 about midway through New Jersey.

I thought that it was really neat that today, of all days, having effectively driven directly here straight from having resigned my post at Citigroup that I drove right down the same road on which I worked for the first few years.  The old office, the one where I first interviewed and my first three locations at Citi, were all at the site in Warren that actually sat directly on Interstate 78.  So this drive today, on my way to my new job in Connecticut, is the same drive that I took for that interview and that I took again on my first day (and many times thereafter.)  We went right past Lebanon where Dominica and I had tried to buy a house somewhere around 2007 but had backed out at our attorney’s recommendation and ended up in Peekskill instead.  A very nostalgic and memory-filled drive.

It was a warm, foggy morning with a light drizzle.  We stopped at a Pilot and did the final bathroom break there in NJ on 78 before heading on.  Next stop would be the train station on the Hudson.

The drive from I78 up to Croton-on-Hudson went smoothly.  We got to the train station, I got my passengers tickets on the 11:00 am Lake Shore Limited from Croton to Rome and got them on their way before running up to Peekskill myself.

I went to the Peekskill house, my first time in Peekskill in nearly four years!  I didn’t go in, just wanted to test the route from Peekskill to Norwalk to see how the commute would be.

The drive was not bad at all.  It’s 42 miles but pretty easy.  Only a couple of turns from the Peekskill house to Norwalk.  I had no idea before tonight that you could get from the one to the other so easily.  It is all one, big woods from one to the other.

I drove around Norwalk a little, just to get a feel for the place.  I went to the office first then to a couple of apartments that Dominica and I had looked at online and were not sure if they were in a place where we would be interested in living or not.

I was very tired, though, and did not have a hotel reservation so wanted to get to the Econolodge and be sure that everything was all set before I did anything further.  If I found at that I had no hotel room that would be really had considering how tired I was.

So I drove out to the hotel and got a room.  I went in and ended up pretty much sleeping all afternoon.  I went down for a nap in the early afternoon, around two or three, and slept until well into night time.  Then I got up for maybe two hours but was back to sleep around three in the morning and slept all night.

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